“When the horses heard the Devil scream, they’d carry on so you’d think they were gonna tear the barn down. You could hear the Devil scream a long way off when the horses would quiet down. People may say there’s nothing to it but I know darned well there is.”

Location: Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Jersey Devil's territory isn't just confined to the coastal region of New Jersey's Pine Barrens. Long before the "Leeds Devil" story became part of the local lore in the mid-18th century, the Native Americans of the Leni Lenape tribe had noted a strange creature in the area and named the nearby creek "Popuessing" meaning, "Place of the dragon." Also according to Loren Coleman and Bruce Hallenbeck in their book, Monsters of New Jersey: Mysterious Creatures in the Garden State, in 1677, Swedish explorers found strange footprints in the rocks near the same creek and renamed it "Drake Kill" – "drake" also meaning dragon.

Background:

Southern New Jersey is steeped in the legend of The Jersey Devil, with the eponymous rascal inspiring everything from the names of businesses to stickers and T-shirts for tourists. But as one "South Jersey" native has informed us, The Pine Barrens themselves may be nothing like what outsiders envision, with most of it being "lush, green and beautiful" and a joy to explore. Also, maybe almost no one from the area believes the myth themselves. However, it seems in the case of the legend of Jersey Devil – there are two distinct yet connected phenomenal elements at play: the ye olde myth, and the otherworldly thing that more than a few people swear they've encountered. So what do you say to them? Are you sure all they saw or heard was an owl, a stray African bat, a mutant goat havin' a laugh, or that good ol' well-worn chestnut the Sandhill Crane? Because now these accounts become much like any other testimony of the paranormal; those who have not experienced it probably won't believe it, but those that have can never forget it.

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Older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who installed him as King of Naples and Sicily, and later King of Spain. Abdicated, retired to New Jersey (with Spain's crown jewels) to become a suburbanite dandy. After an encounter with the Jersey Devil himself whilst out hunting, it is said that Joseph would forever be on the lookout for the Jersey Devil, in hopes he could bag it as a trophy.

“It was neither beast, nor man, nor spirit, but a hellish brew of all three.” – Vance Larner, writing in his diary about his encounter with the Jersey Devil in 1790.

Leeds Point, Galloway, New Jersey, United States. As the most popular version of the legend of the Jersey Devil goes, Deborah Leeds (nee Smith) emigrated from England to marry Daniel Leeds in the mid-Eighteenth century. When her 13th child was born, she cursed the difficult labor and the already impoverishing cicumstances of a brood of 12, and invoked the Devil. The infant became a ghastly cryptid and has haunted the New Jersey Pine Barrens ever since. Some legends have it as a "Mrs. Shrouds" as the beast's mother.

Background:

They say if you meet someone from New Jersey, Pennsylvania or New York, you don't ask them if they've heard of the "Jersey Devil," you ask them if they've had some kind of encounter with it. The legend of the curious cryptid is so prolific, they've no doubt heard of it, and if they've spent any time near the Pine Barrens of "The Garden State," more often than not you'll find they've experienced some evidence of the beast, or know someone who has. Folklorists say that there are more than 30 variations of the legend, but the main origin story of New Jersey's own "Official Demon" goes all the way back to 1735, and a Mrs. Leeds of Galloway, NJ, who upon a difficult delivery of her 13th child, exclaimed it might as well be a devil – which, if the tale is to be believed, you should never do. Since then, the story has been so popular that the idea of The Jersey Devil has made its way into movies, television, and video games, and is even the inspiration for the name of New Jersey's National Hockey League team. But why has this tale endured for at least 282 years? Is it because somehow the legend is just so fantastic that people can't forget it? Or is it because, as so many residents throughout the years have claimed, from New Jersey's eastern shores, through the mysterious Pine Barrens all the way to western Pennsylvania, something really is out there?